


Beneath the Sun's Shadow

by TheSpectralDuke



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Based loosely on Ghimlyt Dark dungeon, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), No Beta, Some assumptions about Garlean terminology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26433919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpectralDuke/pseuds/TheSpectralDuke
Summary: Upon the Ghimlyt Dark, Laelia oen Noctua leads her contubernium to battle, only to encounter the knights of Ishgard and their beloved Warrior of Light.
Kudos: 4





	Beneath the Sun's Shadow

_ **Beneath the Sun's Shadow** _

The air stank of ceruleum vapor as Laelia oen Noctua was ripped from slumber by the wail of an alarum.

She had slept in her armor owing to exactly this likelihood and so needed only to snatch up her helmet as she rose from the cot, shaking off sleep as a soldier did on the frontlines. Though last word had been that all was quiet on the front, she had also heard surreptitious word that the Eorzean Alliance had been mustering for a renewed assault across the ashen fields of Ghimlyt. Picking up her gunblade and sheathing it at her hip, she ducked through the tent's black folds and emerged into the organized chaos of a camp at muster. The Garlean camp was a mass of black fabric tents, field-rigged bays for magitek constructs, and soldiers rushing to answer the alarum call. The bitter tang of ceruleum assaulted her nostrils even once she slid the helm over chestnut-brown hair, green eyes and soot-marked skin, her last wash having not entirely scrubbed away the grime and mess of war.

“La- Decanus” Zivan aan Altor stalked to her side across the barren ground, leaving bootprints in the ash. The hrothgar's helm hung from a clawed hand, baring pale gray fur and fierce eyes the hue of ice. Like her he wore the armor of a legionnaire, all black, plates of steel over a flexible suit of ceruleum-treated carbon. A magitek vanguard stalked past, its footfalls shaking the ground, the whine of its joints drowning her hearing until it had moved on a good way with only titanic prints to indicate it had passed.

“Zivan,” she greeted. “What word?”

“None save the alarum,” the hrothgar replied, falling in with her as they joined the stream of soldiers marching toward the muster ground. He slid on his helm, but even with it on his build marked him far apart from the garleans around him. Few hrothgar served Garlemald, Laelia reflected, too independent, too proud. But Zivan was different, his mind a thing of steel reason, and when his clan had resisted and been wiped out to a man in a hopeless defense of their queen, he had thrown aside an archaic blade and equally archaic traditions to take the side of progress. Perhaps one day he would truly replace the _relics_ his kind called gunblades with the real thing like hers, but for now he wielded a machine-worked claymore.

“A fresh assault, then,” she mused as they left the neat rows of tents. A short row of gunships lay at rest beside the muster field, their moorings as field-rigged as the bays for the magitek constructs, but at a moment's notice they would fly and lay further waste to the Ghimlyt front. Ahead of them, line after line of infantry stood in formation, flanked on both sides by rows of armor, vanguards and colossi, all facing the podium upon which the legatus stood ready to address his troops. The pair fell in line with the rest of their cohort, Laelia stealing a glance skywards at heavens blanketed with soot and clouds of smoke. The sun tried to shine through, a ray brushing over her helmeted face for the briefest of moments. Despite herself she shivered, Zivan glancing her way before snapping to attention as the legatus's voice boomed across the field, amplified by microphone and loudspeaker. Lalia's arm snapped across her breast on instinct, boots slapping together as she stood rigid as a board.

“Proud soldiers of the VIIIth,” the legatus intoned. “Today, a new day shall dawn for Eorzea. Van Darnus _failed_ with the VIIth. Van Baelsar with the XIVth. But _today_ , we, the VIIIth, march across Ghimlyt! Though the Eorzean savages have fought bravely up to now, it is time that their might was harnessed to the will of the Garlean Empire! The emperor bids us take the vanguard in this assault to shatter the enemy lines! In your hands are the swords of progress! You are girded in the finest technology our proud nation has mustered! Your enemy is deluded, undisciplined, blinded by false faith and the alluring light of a fake savior. Go forth now with me, sally across the field, and demonstrate to Eorzea the proud future they should have embraced with open arms! Slay them without relent until they throw down their arms and beg to join our ranks! And if they do not surrender, we shall take their realm by force, as is our destiny! For Garlemald! For the emperor!”

“For Garlemald! For the emperor!” Laelia cried at the top of her lungs, Zivan adding his own roar to the chorus as their salutes only grew more fervent. Before she knew it they were marching, headed across ashen ground toward the front. The roar of battle grew in her ears, the ringing of swords, the booming of explosions, the wails of the dead and dying.

Though they had marched in a century-sized block, as the battlefield approached they broke into their eight-man contuberniums, the centurion assigning each their place in turn. They were at the base of a slope caked in ash and the wrecks of magitek and airships, the Eorzean cannon hurling its payloads at drones and gunships as they flew across the field. Laelia regarded the upward slope as best she could from their position, marking the imprints of trenches and artillery craters. A trio of colossi stomped ahead, their monstrous swords ready in their hands as they effortlessly traversed ground she knew she and her fellow infantry would make painstaking work of picking through.

“Contubernium Septem!” Laelia snapped to attention as the centurion approached. Atilius quo Severus was a stern man who looked as though someone had carved him from granite, his face scarred and ever grim, eyes harsh. He carried his helm under his arm, a gunhalberd sheathed across his back. “Decanus oen Noctua, you will mark the left flank from this position.” He indicated a path some way off. “Aerial intelligence reports the knights of Ishgard are in the process of extending Eorzea's grip down that flank, so Contubernium Octo and Contubernium Novem will follow directly behind you. Do not allow the Ishgardians nor any other Eorzean force to pass you, lest our lines be encircled and collapse.”

“Centurion!” she acknowledged with a salute. He returned it, a rare smirk coming to the stony lips.

“See that you bleed the savages well, decanus, and let your lion have his fill.” He chuckled as he moved on toward Contubernium Octo, Laelia casting a look at Zivan. Though she couldn't see his face, she could certainly imagine the lips peeled back and his fangs bared.

“Zivan,” she said, too familiar, she knew. The hrothgar's head bowed and he awkwardly saluted.

“Decanus.” His tone was flat and she knew well his bitterness. Why mock him so, she thought, forcing herself not to throw a glare at quo Severus lest he catch it and tear a strip off of her once the day was done. Zivan had seen the light, embraced Garlemald with his arms wide, and yet still he was derided as a savage. It wounded her to see, even if he would shrug it off and insist “better words than blades”.

She shook her head. “Contubernium!” The other six fell in, four men, two women. Two more garleans, Caelia with her spear, Gnaeus readying a bow. A towering roegadyn, Aerstitar, bearing a blade and shield as befit his name's meaning. Two hyur wielding a bow and a blade respectively, Cerdic and Sieglinde, and finally an axe-wielding elezen, Ivraut. “We march against the forces of Ishgard! By all counts, they are mighty, but even they cannot match us! Let us go forth and show them the might of Garlemald!”

“For Garlemald!” they intoned together, some more grudging than others. Much as she yearned to forget the fact, she could not escape the truth that not all were as willing as Zivan. Only Ivraut had willingly joined as he had, choosing the chance of ascension through merit in Garlean ranks over the perpetual disdain he had received in Gridania. Aerstitar, Cerdic and Sieglinde had all been pressed into Garlean service on the other hand during past battles. Normally they would never have been sent at their own former kin, but by her limited understanding, this situation was regarded as critical and it was for her to keep them in line.

By force if needs be, loathe though she was.

Regardless of her doubts, they followed her in a skirmisher formation, spread wide enough that a single artillery shell wouldn't fell more than one of them but close enough to converge should they meet resistance. The battlefield across which they stalked was grim, the broken bodies of Garlean and Eorzean alike left rotting in the mud and dust. The burned husks of magitek armor littered the fray and understanding failed Laelia. She was under no illusions that the Eorzeans were weak, far from it, but even so to see the mighty steel embodiment of Garlean supremacy destroyed in droves across the field of the Ghimlyt Dark astounded her. Intimidated her, almost.

But she did not let it show as she marched past the bodies of fallen comrades. She wondered if she knew any of the corpses she picked around, trying to avoid stepping on them. Undignified though this resting place was for them, she would not add that further indignity to their deaths. Superstition, she knew, the droning lectures of schola professors coming back. Past death a body was inert, naught but a husk of what once was with no further significance. To venerate it as more was to fall into the same sad trap as the savages who still clung to ailing traditions and false deities, when the light of science had proven such beliefs as frail and dusty as cobwebs in the old temples. So they had spoken, yet still she trod around the corpses carefully.

“Decanus.” It was Zivan, the hrothgar stopping and cautiously indicating a position ahead. Bright steel stood distinct from the soot and mud, picked out with blue tabards. Spears, swords and shields gleaming in the light of lingering fires. The crest of Ishgard flew on a banner that tugged at the lance from which it hung as though yearning to fly far from this pitiful wasteland.

The knights of Ishgard.

Laelia drew her gunblade. The Ishgardians had not noticed them yet, their dark plate blending into the murk. “Gnaeus, Cerdic.” The garlean and the hyur stepped up, drawing their bows as they crouched. “Mark two and await my signal.” She glanced to Zivan. “Are you prepared?”

“As ever,” he rumbled, moving slowly to take better cover. At her signal he would emerge and lay waste to the proud knights. More quick gestures moved the remaining members of her contubernium into ambush positions, Laelia keeping a careful eye on the approaching knights as she remaining crouched, gunblade balanced on her arm to pick out a target. She aimed for the knight with the most ornate armor, reasoning that surely they were the leader of this little band.

Thirty yalms.

Twenty yalms. One of the knights stopped, seeming to look at where Zivan still clung to the wreckage of a magitek vanguard. Had he been spotted? It was not ideal, but she could not risk their alert. She swiftly signed and arrows sang through the air, followed by her gunblade's bullet. One knight dropped with an arrow to his chainmail gorget, the second escaping with the shaft glancing off his shoulder. The ornate knight took her bullet to the breast but stood proud.

“For Ishgard! For the Warrior of Light!”

“ _The Warrior of Light...?”_ But the thought died with Zivan's mightiest roar as the hrothgar exploded from his hiding place. The mighty claymore tore through the air with speed she would have thought impossible had she not seen him fight. The unfortunate knight he had chosen tried to block with a hastily raised sword, but their guard was too frail, batted aside and leaving them to crumple as the hrothgar's blade shattered steel and flesh asunder. Another knight came at Zivan with a spear, but Laelia was already moving to intercept him, her gunblade swishing to smack his weapon to the ground. She shoulder-tackled him away to gain room, gunblade coming up to put a bullet in his helm before he could fully recover. The knight dropped like a broken marionette, pitiful whimpers escaping him as he expired.

Laelia could only stare for a moment before the ornate knight was on her.

“I am Veauyant de Bonfaurt, Temple Knight of Ishgard!” he declared as his sword rang against her gunblade.

“And I Laelia oen Noctua,” she replied.

Veauyant laughed. “A Garlean with a sense of honor? I almost weep at the prospect of slaying you.” Their blades sang and rang over and over, Veauyant wielding it two-handed and she was forced to copy him to fend off his fierce blows. The skill of Ishgardian knights was certainly not fiction, for she was hard-pressed to match him at all. A blow chipped her helm, hammering against her skull and throwing her vision askew long enough that his steel bit her forearm.

Laelia danced back, almost stumbling on the rough ground. Octo and Novem would surely be approaching, she thought as Veauyant advanced with that sword raised to strike again. And Zivan was tearing the other knights apart behind the Temple Knight, his ferocity more than an equal for their skills. Arrows flew and two more knights dropped.

Veauyant glanced back and she seized the opening. His blade was in the way almost immediately but she had him off balance and her next blow sent him reeling back a step. Though her arm ached where he had cut her, she kept her offense up as best she could, dodging his efforts to counterattack. A thrust toward his neck was deflected, but she used it to fire a bullet into his shoulder. None left in the chamber, but the knight snarled through his pain. His next blow made her arms shudder from the force of parrying it, her gunblade's edge chipping and splintering. It wasn't made for this sort of combat, but he was faster than she expected a knight in such plate to be and where normally she would evade she was forced to take his blows instead.

A roar rang out and Veauyant whirled before the next strike could fall. Zivan was upon him, the hrothgar's armor stained with blood now. The knight's sword met the claymore and was battered back toward Veauyant's chest, a kick from Zivan sweeping his legs out from under him. Chainmail links rang against each other as he smashed against the ground and his sword tumbled from his grip.

“Thank you,” Laelia coughed, finding her breath as the hrothgar brought his blade to the fallen knight's throat. The next words struck in her throat, loathe as she was to utter them. The dead could not be convinced. They would forever be enemies of Garlemald. But the living, the living could be shown its wonders, taught its purpose.

“Decanus,” Zivan murmured. “Laelia?” She came back to herself, almost kicking herself for losing focus on the battlefield so. She could hear the trudge of boots behind her and prepared to turn and give Octo and Novem a good lashing of the tongue for being so pitifully late to this fight, only for Veauyant to laugh in pure joy.

She froze and looked down at the knight. “Why do you laugh?” He was looking at Zivan, surely- no, _past_ -

A shadow soared through the air, propelled by a jump. Laelia's gaze snapped to it, seeing barbed purple mail, armored skirts folded like a dragon's wings. Blonde hair crowned by a rabbit's ears, a lance whirling in hand. The figure landed atop the wreck of a fallen colossus, blazing with an aura like crimson flames, and the lance thrust. Contubernium Octo sounded cries of alarm as her eyes followed the lance to them, watching in shock as coils of scarlet power roared through the air and consumed the squad. Legionnaires crashed to the earth, armor splintered and seared. Even those who stood trembled as the viera jumped and fell upon them wreathed in dragonflame, her impact engulfing them in an inferno.

“Dragoon!” Zivan rumbled. “Decanus, we must support them!”

Laelia snapped to her senses and angled her blade at Veauyant. Kill him quickly, then rescue Octo while Novem swept in to cover the rear from Ishgardian reinforcements.

But the knight had more than laughter. “The Warrior of Light! The Warrior of Light!”

Laelia's blood ran cold. It could not be, surely they would have been briefed, surely they would know-

She whirled about to face Novem, who were picking their way across the wrecks of a cluster of magitek armor to try and assist Octo with the dragoon. But atop the husk of a vanguard above them a towering figure in black robes stood, gazing down as a staff was raised and blazed with purple flame.

“Novem!” she cried. “To your flank!”

Too late.

Her third eye saw the aether weave at the black mage's whim. Flames roared through the sky, insatiable as his command sent lines of fire converging upon Novem. In an instant they were engulfed by inferno and lightning both, hurled aside like leaves by the force of the explosion. Even through her helm the sound of it tore at Laelia's ears, making her head ring and her vision shake for a moment. A lucky few had flung themselves clear, rising to engage the enemy just as Octo struggled with the dragoon, but it was plain to her that both were outclassed by far.

Battle plans in tatters, Laelia struggled to find sense, to see where victory lay amid in the jaws of defeat closing on her. She looked to Zivan, her rock, her stalwart second, but all of a sudden there was light behind him, as though he were the moon eclipsing the _sun_ -

Gauntlet-sheathed hands lifted a sword and shield that glowed like the harshest golden sunlight. A blue cape fluttered with each step, white surcoat stained with ash and blood yet somehow no less majestic than if they were clean. Armored boots made traversing the battlefield seem effortless, Ishgardian knights following the footprints as though they were the procession of a saint. The paladin was tall, arms thick and strong, head held high. The voices finally came clear as her ears stopped ringing.

“Ishgard remembers, Warrior of Light!”

“For House Fortemps!”

“For Ser Aymeric!”

“For the Warrior of Light!”

 _The eikon slayer_. The titles reeled off, every impossible deed recounted in whispered rumor, every muttered wish that this figure choose another battlefield to march upon. Victory died in the light's glow. It was like Laelia was looking at the sun, as far beyond her reach as it was possible to be. They could not win here, she knew, not against the visage of death that advanced toward her.

But even so Zivan turned to face it with blade held high.

The Warrior of Light brought up her sword, its light blinding, preventing Laelia from seeing her face clearly. But she saw the aether bent effortlessly to the paladin's will as for a moment the Warrior of Light stopped. A star of light burst in the hrothgar's chest and he snarled in pain as it knocked him back a step. Desperately Laelia snatched for her belt, grasping rounds and making to load them with shaking hands. A hand gripped her leg and pulled, Veauyant rising with a cry of triumph as she stumbled and tried not to fall, the rounds slipping into the mud. Cursing herself for losing him in the Warrior of Light's glow, Laelia thrust with her gunblade and punched it through his chainmail with all her might. His cry turned to a bellow of agony as she tried to wrench the blade free, but it was caught in him until she was forced to roughly kick him off of the sword. He lay in the dirt, moaning weakly and clutching at his bleeding gut.

Zivan charged at the Warrior of Light before she could cry for him to stop, claymore at the ready. The Warrior of Light moved, the Ishgardians stopping to let their champion be first to the fray. She was faster than belief, upon Zivan before his blade was fully brought to bear. The sword of sunlight slashed a fiery arc across the hrothgar's chest, its path marked in golden motes. Zivan roared in anguish and a strangled gasp escaped Laelia.

“Decanus, we must leave him!” Caelia cried. She and Aerstitar bled from superficial wounds, Sieglinde lay fallen and motionless, a knight dead beside her. “Command must know that the eikon slayer is upon us!”

Laelia shakily gripped her gunblade, staring as the Warrior of Light's blade laid open Zivan's thigh. Another cry. Anguished wails as the dragoon slew the last of Octo with a thrust to the neck, the viera's eyes ablaze with passion as they turned to Septem. Her neck weakly craned the other way to see Ishgardians charging the last man of Novem, the black mage solemnly regarding the devastation he had wrought. But it was only a matter of moments before he rejoined the fray and turned his magic against Septem.

“We cannot win this day,” Ivraut whispered as he came up to her side. “None can stand before the Weapon of Light and live.” The duskwight trembled in a way she had never seen. “Not primals, not the greatest of men. Most certainly not us.”

The paladin wasn't toying with Zivan. Her shield caught his falling sword and the sound of metal on metal rang out, overpowering the hrothgar's roars of fury and the Warrior of Light's slight gasps of exertion. But with both hands put into the swing, Zivan was powerless to stop her blade as it punched into his chest and through his back. The golden light emerged dripping red. The Ishgardians cheered.

An anguished wail tore itself unbidden from Laelia's throat, hand suddenly so tight on her blade that it hurt. The Warrior of Light pulled her sword free with an unearthly ease, watching Zivan fall with distant eyes. His blood still marked her radiant blade as the eyes turned to Laelia.

“Decanus!” Caelia barked, hand gripping Laelia's shoulder and pulling her round roughly. Behind her fellow Garlean, Laelia saw the dragoon stood like an impassive sentinel, the viera's chill eyes looking toward the Warrior of Light as though awaiting her bidding. She couldn't see the black mage but she knew he would be the same.

Awaiting their precious champion.

Her eyes watered but she couldn't remove her helm to wipe them, nor could she let them see her so weak. “Go,” she said in a choked voice. “Tell command. I will hold here as ordered.”

“We shall not leave you!” Gnaeus cried even as he loosed an arrow. Laelia whirled to follow its flight only to find the Warrior of Light's shield already up, as though she had known it was coming _before_ it was loosed. Impossible.

“Go!” Laelia cried, word catching in her throat and coming out strained. She looked back to where Zivan lay at the paladin's feet, the Warrior of Light looking down at him almost _sadly_.

“Leave her,” Caelia finally murmured.

“She will die!” Gnaeus cried, another arrow ringing out, but the Warrior of Light's sword cut it from the air with only the barest look. It fell upon Zivan in pieces and Laelia trembled.

If she stayed, death was all that awaited. She wanted to break, wanted to run, wanted to let them shoot her as a deserter rather than stay and face this enemy. But Zivan lay there. He had flung himself at the Warrior of Light without fear and now he bled at her feet, cut down like a mere boy daring his luck against the most seasoned of masters.

Her comrades finally settled on their course, pulling back. She did not know if they would make it, for the dragoon and black mage surely saw them go, but as the Warrior of Light left Zivan's side and advanced with the Ishgardians following, the decanus held her blade with that steely painful grip and marched herself up the slope.

Toward the sun itself.

She stopped a few scant yalms from the paladin, dwarfed by her both in normal stature and by the slope on which they stood. Her gunblade seemed a twig compared to the blade of light the eikon slayer held. The Warrior of Light looked past her, and Laelia looked back to where she had left Veauyant bleeding in the dirt.

A name left the Warrior of Light's lips but it wasn't the fallen knight's and Laelia didn't fully catch it. Regardless, an elezen man in white robes broke from the Ishgardian ranks, accompanied by two knights. A healer, doubtless, gone to rescue Veauyant from his imminent death if they were not too late.

Laelia looked up. Overhead the clouds of smoke were thinning, rays breaking through to bathe the battlefield. One swept across where they stood, gracing the Ishgardians and their radiant champion but stopping just short of her. She felt she ought to say something, she had spoken her name to Veauyant after all, but what use was it? No matter what she said, she would be only the last in a long long line of those the Warrior of Light had culled in her crusade.

There was nothing to speak.

The gunblade came up.

Laelia charged.

The Warrior moved in step with her. Before Laelia was thrusting, the shield was turning her blade, her stroke already weakened by her bleeding arm. Its edge scraped on blinding light and steel, letting the Warrior of Light's sword lay open her thigh. Her plate, the carbon beneath, all useless as the edge parted them like paper. Laelia gasped, gritting her teeth as agony lit in her nerves. She had to struggle not to let the wounded leg buckle as the Warrior of Light pressed her attack. The paladin's shield punched her helmet, chips of metal ringing as they shattered free, and Laelia was sent tumbling down the slope like a rag doll. She landed in a heap and the gunblade fell a few yalms away, torn from her hand by the force of her landing. She stared at the blinding light of the paladin's blade, wondering why the Warrior of Light didn't walk down and deal the final blow.

The roaring of magitek engines filled her ears, followed by a baleful wailing. Gunships swept overhead in a bombing formation, passing from view as fast as they entered it, and she knew what was coming. She doubted the remnants of Septem had reached command so soon, but word of this push by the Ishgardians must have reached the legatus. The gunships had come to stop the assault with ceruleum fire.

Canisters fell toward the Ishgardian ranks like meteors,each bearing a payload of chemical flame that would burn for hours once unleashed. The Warrior of Light had already looked up, somehow knowing what was to come, and now her radiant sword stabbed the earth and her shield was held to the heavens. Aether weaved the silhouette of wings before that silhouette became light around the paladin, wrapping the ranks behind her in their glow. The canisters of ceruleum struck the barrier of light and exploded, but the liquid flame washed from the wings of radiance, spilling on the ground to either side and burning upon ashen earth.

Laelia stared in numb shock at the impossibility.

The aether dissipated, wings dissolving into motes of light as a fresh cheer sang from the Ishgardians. The paladin drew her blade from the earth, mud joining Zivan's blood on the shining sword, and she advanced . The knights followed through the passage her radiant wings had marked as Laelia weakly rose. It felt like she had cracked a rib when she crashed down on top of the wound to her leg that still bled, but she glimpsed Zivan upon the ground past the Ishgardians and the sight made her grit her teeth. Even without her gunblade, she had a knife, meant more for use around camp but serviceable as a backup weapon.

It was hopeless, she knew. The sword and shield were already moving, responding to movements she was only just stringing together in her head as she limped forward as fast as she could. Archers nocked their arrows ready to end her charge before she got within even a yalm of the paladin, but a step from their champion made them hold.

The knife stabbed at the Warrior of Light's bare head.

The blinding shield caught it.

The sword of sunlight tore through Laelia's chest.

Her breath caught in her throat, air punched from her lungs by the feeling of the warm blade inside her. She stared into those eyes as the knife dropped to the earth, then slipped to her knees as the sword came free. More blood on the blade. She stared up, only just able to look at the paladin, shivering with pain, feeling death hurtle toward her.

As her strength failed and she began to make her final fall, she caught her last glimpse of the Warrior of Light's eyes. There was no triumph there, only a bitter sadness.

The earth caught her, cold and hard, only the heat of ceruleum flames warming her and even that faded swiftly away.

The last thing she saw was the Warrior of Light's boots carefully step around her, the glow of the sword and shield burying Laelia oen Noctua beneath the sun's shadow.


End file.
